Exercise Log 11.21.13 (Back Day + Cardio)

Alright today was a fun day so thought I’d make a quick note about how it went before it got too late, today was back day. As said before I’m trying to make a conscious effort to vary my workouts a little more, focus on better intensity, and make them shorter because I think they’re suboptimally long (usually an hour and 45 minutes would like to get them to an hour and 15) and that I may be burning more calories than I’m consuming (and clean bulking I really don’t like consuming extra calories just to make up the difference, a good way just to get fat and feel gross and be broke from spending too much on food).

That said, my back workout was pretty succinct – did warmups, then bent over rows (3 sets, one at 90 and two at 110, 10 reps), then went to deadlifts (10 reps at a light weight for set 1, 8 at a moderate weight at set 2, 6 at a heavy weight on set 3, tried for a set to match or break my personal record but the bar wouldn’t budge so I finished with two drop sets, one at a moderate weight and one at a light weight as many reps as I could do… really made my back burn), then I did some t-bar rows (two sets of 8 at a moderate weight, 1 set of 8 at a heavy weight), went and did some seated rows (4 sets) and pull-ups (starting with wide grip pullups, which I’m weak at, as many reps as I can then chin-ups to complete a set of 7, and if I failed chin-ups doing the rest as forced negative wide griped pullups… 4 sets). Lastly to add some variety because all of that is standard for back day, I decided my laterals needed more work so I did lateral extensions for 4 sets which I felt was fun, at a lighter weight though given I had worn myself out pretty good.

For cardio I got in another fantastic outdoor 5 mile run at the nearby park, was great outside for it my only qualm is it seems like it gets dark far too early in the day for me and I kind of hate that.

My running partner convinced me to hit up a pilates class, which I’ve been trying to do more calm stretching focused workouts so I thought I’d try it. Whereas yoga was more passive, this was much more active. Literally the class had elbow to knee crunches, toe touch upper ab crunches, planks, the whole works on core workouts. The breathing was kind of hard and there was a lot of hip flexion and ab/adductor work. I don’t like doing a ton of abductor/adductor work, I feel like I can risk overdeveloping those muscles and potentially cause dysfunction down the road, but otherwise I had a fun time. I was hoping for more stretching though, it was a little fast paced… definitely prefer the yoga but I’ll try it again I imagine soon, especially if I skip a core workout day.